


The Wicked Games

by Black_Knight



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:59:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Knight/pseuds/Black_Knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumplestiltskin gets an inspiration.  Regina pays the price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wicked Games

**Author's Note:**

> So I have two ongoing stories I intended to update today, but then this idea just popped into my head. No points for guessing what movie I saw yesterday.

Regina gazes at Rumplestiltskin.

“Sure you don’t want to join us? There really should be thirteen of us.”

“Only twelve districts out of thirteen competed. Consider me District 13 if you must be a completist.”

“No, you’re the Capitol. District 13 would be…Storybrooke.”

Rumplestiltskin taps his fingers together. “Yes. Poor Storybrooke. But haven’t you missed the Enchanted Forest?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve gotten to see so much of it, here in this underground prison cell of mine.”

“That’s true. I was the one who spent time locked away underground before, not you. And look at me now!”

“Clever of you, this plan to eliminate the villains rather than the heroes. The heroes have their tiresome codes of honor, but we villains tend to be power-hungry. We’re your competitors.”

Rumplestiltskin grins, and Regina continues, “Plus it gets the rabble on your side. In exchange for our elimination, they’re willing to forget that you’re the Dark One. You really only made one mistake…but you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

The grin drops, and he snaps his fingers. Two guards come in, escorting Emma between them. They come to a stop next to Rumplestiltskin, and at another gesture from him, they force Emma to her knees. Regina simply watches, her face a mask.

Rumplestiltskin holds up a leather cuff. “One last deal for you, my dear Regina.” He tosses the cuff through the bars of her cell.

Regina understands immediately, but she is surprised that he knew that he didn’t need to drag Henry in for this purpose. Then again, that might have been too much even for the peasants.

Regina picks up the cuff, her mother’s voice ringing in her head. Emma’s eyes widen in shock, and she struggles to her feet. “Regina, no!”

One of the guards hits her, and before she can launch herself at him, the other guard catches her arms and pinions them behind her back. Rumplestiltskin hasn’t even bothered to look at the action next to him, merely favoring Regina with an inquiring smile.

Regina ignores Emma’s shouts and calmly puts the cuff on her left wrist. “This really isn’t necessary, imp. Don’t you think I already know you don’t intend for me to get out of this alive?”

Rumplestiltskin bares his teeth. “It matters to me how you die. Powerless. As you once were, under your mother’s thumb.”

“Take it off, Regina!” Emma yells, still kicking.

Regina and Rumplestiltskin regard her with identical mocking smiles. “She couldn’t even if she wanted to-”

“-dear.” Regina holds up her cuffed wrist for effect and demonstrates.

Emma sags. “Why?”

Rumplestiltskin waves his hand. “It’s time.” 

Grey smoke begins swirling around Regina. She looks at Emma and tells her, “Our son needs a mother.” _Love is weakness,_ Cora says in her mind.

Emma’s out of sight before she has a chance to respond, and in another second Regina is aboveground for the first time since the return to the Enchanted Forest. She blinks rapidly, trying to get accustomed to the light, and looks around her.

She’s in a clearing surrounded by woods. The twelve combatants are spread out in a wide circle, but unlike the Hunger Games, the center isn’t filled with useful weapons and tools. The clearing is just empty save for them. She can’t help but roll her eyes at the way Rumplestiltskin has stacked the deck against her. Like she even knows how to use a sword in the first place.

Rumplestiltskin’s voice booms over their heads, magically extended no doubt from the castle that is now his home. He’s borrowed a few more ideas from the Hunger Games, Regina knows, like having the populace able to witness the events. That’s clear enough from the tenor of his remarks, which address the viewers rather than the combatants, welcoming them to the first ever Wicked Games.

Regina ignores his blather and checks the combatants to her immediate sides. To her left is Prince John. Good. To her right is Scar. Not so good. On Scar’s other side is Shere Khan, and maybe the two of them will get into it with each other first. Or they’ll decide to temporarily ally on the basis of them being beasts, which will make her their dinner. 

She glances again to her left and sees that John is flanked by the Horned King. That’s her first real stroke of luck, because she’s sure that the cowardly Prince (whose only real threat is his being a member of royalty) will consider her less visibly frightening than the Horned King.

The bell signaling the start of the Wicked Games sounds, and Regina immediately turns around and sprints towards the woods, but not straight back. Rather, she takes an angle in John’s direction, and he is doing the same in reverse, eager to get away from the Horned King. Regina can tell by the sounds behind her that Scar is unfortunately chasing her, and she reminds herself that she doesn’t have to be as fast as the lion, only faster than Prince John.

She makes it. Her path crosses with John’s just seconds before it would have been too late, and she hears his screams behind her as she rushes into the trees. She risks a very quick glance back to determine what’s become of the Horned King and Shere Khan, and sees to her relief that they’re attacking each other. She turns back into the woods and runs for as long as she can before she collapses.

After another fifteen minutes, a horn sounds and pictures begin flashing up in the sky - Rumplestiltskin obviously has decided not to wait for the end of each day, since he does not intend the Games to last long. The fact that there was no Cornucopia made that apparent enough. Regina watches, holding her breath. Prince John. The Horned King. King George. Jafar. A third of the field eliminated in less than half an hour.

Voices near her cause her to press deeper into the underbrush. She recognizes one of them, affecting a flirtatious tone, but she can hear the edge underneath. There’s a laugh in answer, and then a crash, and then nothing. In another minute, footsteps tramp away. Regina heads in the sound of the crash, and finds herself looking down at the body of Captain Hook. There’s no visible cause of death, which tells her that one of the other witches killed him. No surprise. With no long-range weapons provided, much less any weapons, those villains who are mere mortals are at a severe disadvantage. There’s now only one left besides her, since the cuff has cut her off from her powers.

Before Hook’s body can be removed by Rumplestiltskin's teleportation, Regina reaches down and quickly removes the hook from his arm. It’s better than nothing. She wishes that he wasn’t dead, as he was the only one that she could have easily allied with. They’d known each other reasonably well, and while there was a history of betrayals between them, they hadn’t hated each other. He wouldn’t have turned on her in this arena until it was necessary, meaning at the endgame.

But no matter - he’s dead, and all she has left is his hook. She slides it into the back of her pants, underneath her blue jacket. She knows he would have liked it if she is to kill Rumplestiltskin with his hook, but the odds of that are decidedly not in her favor. As she gazes down at his body, grey smoke covers it, and then it is gone. A minute later, his picture appears in the sky.

No powers and no Hook makes what she has to do even harder. But there’s nothing to it but to keep on. She gives thanks that when she’d been taken prisoner, she’d been wearing boots with low heels.

It had all happened so fast. They’d returned from Neverland with Henry safely in hand, but Peter Pan had followed them. Gold had killed him, his own father. Regina doesn’t even understand really what happened next, except that the Blue Fairy had been screaming about patricide being the worst of crimes, and then the Shadow had been loosed. Storybrooke had started to tumble down around them all, and Gold rushed at her and grabbed her hand. He’d started the spell, and she looked around for Emma, the only one she had ever done magic with together. But she saw that Emma was a distance away, holding onto their son, and a building was toppling dangerously close to them. And so, not knowing what else to do, she’d joined her voice with Gold’s and finished the spell, and all of them had been transported to the Enchanted Forest.

Only, a brick had fallen (or been slammed down) on her head at the very end, and when she woke up, she found herself in the underground cell that Rumplestiltskin had once been incarcerated in. And while she’d lain unconscious, Rumplestiltskin had taken control of the realm. He is king now, and Belle his queen. And nobody feels sorry for the (other) villains.

After another half-mile or so of hard tramping through the woods, Regina finds who she’s been looking for, and it’s another fine mess. Not that that’s a surprise, given who she’s dealing with.

As she gazes down the hill at Maleficent and her prisoner, a sound behind her alerts her to the presence of the third witch in the Wicked Games. She turns around to Mother Gothel, and raises her hands.

“You were the one who killed Hook, weren’t you?”

“Yes. You followed my tracks, I presume?”

“I thought that, being witches, we could join forces. Three witches are very powerful.”

Gothel wags a finger at her. “Don’t think I don’t know what that cuff does to you.”

“So that’s it for me, then?”

Gothel cackles at that. “No. Maleficent will want you. She’s very much been looking forward to finding you.”

“Great.” She turns and begins moving down the hill. Gothel prods at her, unnecessarily, and she takes a deep breath. Gothel pokes another finger into Regina’s back and she nearly loses her balance. She starts to count to ten, but then Gothel shoves her one more time and that’s quite enough. Regina spins around and grabs the offending hand and yanks with all her might, and Gothel flies down the hill. Her body crashes nearly at Maleficent’s feet and lays still.

Regina calmly makes her way down the rest of the hill, Maleficent watching her the whole time. Grey smoke covers Gothel’s body, and it vanishes.

“I hope I didn’t ruin your plans,” Regina tells Maleficent.

Maleficent waves a hand dismissively. “You saved me the bother. She had to go eventually. And she wasn’t nearly as entertaining as _her_.” Across from them, Ruby stares with wide eyes. Regina can tell at a glance that the woman’s right leg is broken.

“Or you,” Maleficent finishes. She thrusts out her hand, and Regina is knocked to the ground, writhing in pain. She is allowed to lie there for a moment, panting, her body aching, and then Maleficent hits her with another energy bolt. And another.

This goes on for a long time.

Somewhere in the middle of the torture, Regina’s sole distraction comes in the form of the sky announcing another death. She almost expects that the picture will be hers, but it’s Scar’s.

Maleficent crouches down next to Regina and touches her cheek. “You can take a lot of pain. I’m impressed.”

“I’ve built up a tolerance for it,” Regina admits, not with the sneer she would ordinarily use but simple weariness. And maybe it’s just the fog of the hurt, but she thinks she sees Maleficent soften very slightly.

Maleficent helps her to sit up against a tree. They both look across the way at Ruby, but she is no fool - she hasn’t tried to escape, no doubt realizing that with her broken leg, Maleficent could track her down before she could get far. Maleficent turns her attention back to Regina, almost regretful. Almost. Regina can see the next bolt forming in her hand. 

“This is all you’re going to do to me?” she asks.

Maleficent’s eyes darken at that.

“You have me _completely_ in your power. Don’t you want anything else?”

Maleficent clenches her jaw for a minute, and then she lurches forward and kisses Regina.

Regina is too sore and battered to return the kiss. She can tell that turns on Maleficent more, though. In a few seconds, Maleficent is ripping open the last few buttons of her shirt and pawing at her breasts and waist.

Regina determinedly ignores Ruby’s presence, and tries not to think about Henry watching on Rumplestiltskin’s magically rigged version of television. Surely Emma would have turned him away as soon as the torture started, well before this point.

Maleficent keeps biting at her neck, hard enough to bruise, and she twists one of Regina’s nipples painfully. Regina moves her thigh up in between Maleficent’s legs, exactly the way she knows Maleficent loves best, and is rewarded with a gasp. Maleficent’s body turns rigid and still, and Regina holds her breath. After a few seconds, the suspension of Maleficent’s body breaks and she begins to grind herself against Regina’s thigh.

Regina lets Maleficent lose herself in the rhythm. Emma comes into her mind again, and she’s bothered, more than she should be, by the idea of Emma seeing. But there’s nothing she can do but wait for Maleficent to climax.

And when she begins to come, Regina takes the hook out from behind her and slashes Maleficent’s throat with it. She knows exactly where to cut along the jugular so that Maleficent is dead before she can do anything to Regina in turn.

Maleficent’s blood splashes all over Regina. She pushes the dead body off her and gets up. She makes her way over to Ruby, who tries to scramble away from her. But Regina holds her down and checks out the broken leg. She leaves Ruby for a moment, to gather a couple of reasonably straight branches. Maleficent’s body is gone when she returns, and Regina kicks herself for not taking the shirt when she had a chance. But there’s nothing to do but to take off her own jacket and use that to secure the branches into a makeshift splint on Ruby’s leg.

Regina helps Ruby to her feet. “I know where we are. There’s a stream down the way.” She does, actually - this isn’t far from the castle where she’d reigned as queen once, and she used to ride through these woods all the time. If Rumplestiltskin has stuck to the arena concept from the Hunger Games, which she’s guessing he has, there’s a dome over them, but the area itself is the same.

Ruby stares disbelievingly at her, but Regina ignores that and helps Ruby hobble her way to the water. They both drink, long, satisfying gulps. And then Regina wades into the stream and washes the blood off her as best she can.

When Regina looks up, she finds that Ruby has discovered a sharp branch somewhere nearby and is pointing it at her. She rolls her eyes. “If you’d made up your mind to kill me, you would have just transformed into a wolf.”

Ruby’s hand shakes. “What are you up to?”

“In case you’ve missed it, I don’t have any magic. And I don’t know how to fight. Shere Khan and Shan Yu are still out there. Even a lame wolf is better than no wolf at all.”

“Why would I help you?” Ruby frowns.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed there’s absolutely no game in these woods. Rumplestiltskin is making sure to starve us out. The only food I’ve seen is the fruit up high, which, in your condition, you can’t reach.”

“And you can? It must be fifteen feet high.”

Regina smirks and strides out of the water. Ruby jabs the branch warningly at her, but she just walks by, to the nearest likely tree. She takes off her boots and socks, and begins to climb. Ruby leans against the trunk and watches. When Regina reaches a good branch, she shakes it until most of the fruit drops.

Ruby picks some of it up while Regina climbs back down. “How can you do that?”

“I climbed trees a lot when I was a girl. It was the only place I could hide from my mother. For some reason, she never thought to look up high. A lot of people don’t.”

Regina would ordinarily not have admitted this to anyone, least of all Ruby. But she knows she has to give the other woman some reason to trust her.

Ruby frowns at the information, but Regina doesn’t give her a chance to respond. Instead she turns and starts scanning the other trees, looking for what she needs.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s going to be night soon. We need to find a tree that we can get you up on.”

“With a broken leg?”

“If I find the right tree, we can use the branches as a ladder and I can pull you up.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Shere Khan is too big of a tiger to climb trees anymore, and we’ll have to hope Shan Yu doesn’t think about it. Either way, it’s better than spending the night down here on the ground.”

Regina finds a tree that’s almost exactly what she needs, and through a combination of climbing and pulling, she’s able to get Ruby up to a reasonably high branch. Neither woman has anything useful to securely tie themselves to the tree with, so they pass a bad night in which they fight to stay awake. Uncomfortable as they are, it shouldn’t have been so difficult, but they’re really tired.

The next morning, they wash themselves in the stream. Regina catches Ruby looking at her.

“What?”

“Just wondering what your endgame is.”

“I have no magic. What do you think?”

“You still have that hook.”

“I’d have to get close enough to use it.”

“You did with Maleficent.”

Regina snorts at that. She knows her power of seduction is strong, but Shere Khan is a tiger, and Shan Yu is not one of those men who are stupid enough to underestimate women.

Which leaves one person. “Are you saying I could seduce you?”

“N-no!”

Regina smiles predatorily, and comes closer to Ruby. “It would be fun. But I don’t need to.” Her eyes slide away from Ruby and register movement in the underbrush.

She walks onto the bank and stands against a tree, drip-drying. Ruby comes and stands a few feet away, angry. “I should just turn, and kill you now.”

Regina grins. “But you won’t. You’re my Fluffy.”

“You are the most annoying-”

“All right. Come along, Fido.”

“Stop it!” 

“Rover?” Regina queries.

Ruby pushes herself to just inches away from Regina and bares her teeth.

Regina leans forward and whispers, “ _Spot_.” Ruby’s eyes dilate with rage. “Kill, Spot, kill.”

Ruby’s nose catches the scent then, and she whirls. She’s a wolf before Regina can even blink twice, and then Shere Khan is on them. Regina scrambles out of the way as the tiger and the Big Bad Wolf crash together.

The fight is swift and deadly. Regina finds the branch that Ruby had pointed at her the afternoon before and comes back with it, but the battle is basically over by then. Regina’s not doing much except saving Ruby some trouble when she shoves the sort-of spear into Shere Khan’s neck.

Ruby shifts back into her human form then. Regina gathers her clothes and gives them back to her, and sets about trying to fashion a new makeshift splint for the leg. Ruby blushes a bit at her nakedness, but Regina’s only comment is, “Anger is terrific adrenaline, isn’t it?”

Shere Khan’s picture flashes into the sky, and Regina gazes at it thoughtfully. “Shan Yu knows now he’s the only one left besides us, and he thinks he’s going up against a wolf and a witch.”

“I am a wolf.”

“But I’m not a witch. Not in here.”

“So?”

“So he’ll be on the lookout for only certain things.” Regina looks around and frowns. “We need to find some vines.”

“How do you know to do this?” Ruby asks a while later.

“One of the few things that I was taught, that was considered appropriately fitting for highborn women, was sewing. I learned a lot about knots.”

And so it comes to pass that Shan Yu gets caught in a vine trap that Regina sets for him. He’s big enough and strong enough that he’s able to yank himself free pretty quickly, but by then Ruby is on him in her wolf-form. He gets in a blow or two at her head, but then she rips his throat out.

Ruby’s still dazed from the battle when she shifts back. Once again, the splint on her leg has broken apart, and the pain has become overwhelming. It’s all she can do to take Shan Yu’s cape from him and cover herself with it. And she watches Regina.

Regina finds what she needs not far away, a rock that takes both of her hands to lift. It’s heavy enough to do the job.

Ruby flinches when Regina approaches her with the rock, and instinctively shifts back into a wolf. Regina sighs. “Change back.” When Ruby stays stubbornly in wolf-form, Regina’s voice turns more demanding. “Change back, _Ms. Lucas_.”

Ruby obeys. She’s too tired and hurt to put up a battle in any form, but it’s deeper than that. The wolf part of her can’t help but respond to Regina as the alpha.

Regina kneels beside her and puts the rock into Ruby’s hands. Ruby stares at her uncomprehendingly.

“It’ll only take one blow,” Regina tells her.

“What? Why?”

Regina smiles. “You’ll be indebted to me forever. I’ve always wanted to give my son a pet wolf.”

Ruby shifts the rock in her hands. “That’s not it.”

“I promised someone once not to hurt wolves.”

“That’s…not it either.”

Regina huffs in exasperation. “All right. You are the only one who will actually be allowed to leave this arena, because you’re the only one who was never truly wicked. You didn’t have control of yourself as a wolf for a while, and that’s why the peasants went along with your inclusion, but you’re not a true villain. You’re in here because of Belle, but Belle will make Rumplestiltskin let you leave if you’re the winner. There’s no point in every last one of us dying.”

“That’s definitely not it. When have you ever thought like that? You’re evil.”

Stung, Regina lashes out. “You don’t know anything about me. I shouldn’t be surprised that Snow never bothered to tell you.”

“Snow! Exactly! I’m her best friend. I’m the very last one you should want alive.”

They glare at each other. “Just do it already.”

“No. Not until you tell me why.” Ruby puts the rock down on her lap, and folds her arms for emphasis.

Regina sighs, defeated. “Red is Snow’s best friend. But Ruby is Emma’s best friend, and I do my best to see you as Ruby.”

Ruby looks closely at her, but incredibly enough, all her senses aren’t crying foul. Regina spreads her hands. “I always knew I wasn’t going to get out of here, so I thought I could at least do something right on my way out." She hates being this open, so she just has to add, "Plus, it’ll annoy Rumplestiltskin.”

Ruby picks up the rock, but Regina doesn’t care for the way the woman looks numb. She slaps her, not hard, just enough. “I still expect you to be Henry’s pet wolf.”

Ruby’s eyes focus more clearly on her, and there’s some of the irritation Regina wanted to inspire. “It’ll be quick,” she tells Ruby. And then she lays her head down on the ground next to Ruby, her hands to each side of her head, and waits for the death blow.

Ruby shifts to wolf-form again, Regina can feel the transformation, and she wants to scream in annoyance. She prefers the rock to having her throat torn out, and part of her can’t believe that the other woman can’t grant her this one thing. But Ruby has always only killed as a wolf, she knows.

And then she feels Ruby’s jaws at her left wrist, and she gasps in shock as her arm breaks apart. She rolls away and half-raises herself to look back, and she stares at the lower part of her arm in the wolf’s mouth. The leather cuff is still on the wrist.

She calls a fireball up into her right hand, and the wolf flinches. “Idiot,” she tells it, before plunging the bleeding mess of her other forearm into the fire. She makes a strangled sound like nothing human, but mercifully the cauterization only requires a few seconds. She lets herself collapse back onto the ground afterwards, and for some time both women just deal with their pain.

Finally Regina drags herself back up to a sitting position and looks at the now-human Ruby. “Why did you do that? Idiot.”

“Because my best friend would never have forgiven me otherwise. I don’t know if she even realizes it yet, but she loves you. Idiot.”

“Me or her?”

“Either. Both,” Ruby snaps.

“Well, that’s all well and good, but as you asked me once before, what’s the endgame here?”

“You have your magic again. Can’t you do something about this dome?”

Regina frowns. “I don’t know. Maleficent would have tried. I’m stronger than she is, but I couldn’t break my way out of that prison cell. If this is the same sort of thing-”

“We have to try.”

Regina stands. “Do you want-”

“No, no more splints. Every time you make one, I have to shift and it gets wrecked. Let’s just get going.”

Regina nods and wraps her one good arm around the other woman’s waist, and they struggle off in search of the dome’s wall. Luckily it’s not that big of an arena, and soon they spot the wall where it’s cut a tree in half.

Ruby sits down heavily. Regina throws a fireball at the wall, and has to duck when it rebounds on her. Then she notices how close it came to setting a tree on fire. Ruby glares at her. “If you set the forest aflame, we have nowhere to escape.”

“I’ll try something else.” She concentrates on the dome, and imagines drilling into it. There’s a little give, but it’s infinitesimal, and she groans. “This is going to take forever.”

“Not like we have anything else to do,” Ruby returns. “And besides-”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just get back to it.”

Regina has never had much patience, but this task requires oceans of it. So she stands, and stares, and stares, and stares.

They show up when Regina is about a third of the way through the wall. Ruby gets to her feet. “It’s-”

“-the Charmings,” Regina finishes.

Ruby grins. “I knew it. I knew they had to be trying to stop all this.”

“Well, that was Rumplestiltskin’s mistake, dropping you in here. He should’ve stopped at eleven.”

Regina comes to the wall and faces Emma. Emma smiles at her, a smile filled with relief and happiness and too many other things for Regina to separate out and identify. So instead Regina just holds her hand up against the wall and mouths to Emma, “Follow my lead.”

Emma puts her hand opposite Regina’s without hesitation, and Regina gathers up all her magic for one last spell. And between their hands, the dome simply dissolves, and their hands come together.

Emma pulls Regina against her and hugs her, and Regina holds on with her one good arm. Snow and Belle run by them to Ruby, and Regina can hear them weeping happily. But she doesn’t care about any of that, because now Henry’s hugging her, and Emma’s explaining in a jumble about how she and Belle and her parents had been trying to take down Rumplestiltskin since the beginning of the Wicked Games, and then Nova and Tinkerbell led the fairies over to their side and turned the tide once and for all after Regina had tried to sacrifice herself for Ruby.

“And Ruby was right, by the way - I would never have forgiven her,” Emma tells her. Her face grows stern. “Or you.”

“You can’t do that again, Mom,” Henry insists, and Regina wishes that he weren’t on the side with her amputated forearm. But Emma puts an arm around Henry then, and Regina smiles at her in thanks because she knows Emma did it for her. Emma grins back, and impetuously kisses her. The kiss wipes away all the horror and pain of the last two days, and Regina lets herself sink into it. When it ends, Regina tells Emma and Henry, her family, “I promise.”


End file.
